Readings:

"Children's Questions: Reference Interviews for the Young."

• Callaghan's article offers insight into the treatment of reference interviews with a younger crowd. Reference interviews with kids often have more steps than the same process with adults. Kids may not understand the importance of knowing titles or character names or even what types of media they are looking for. Callaghan also addresses what she calls "the reference pace," or how each librarian defines and works through an interview at different speeds. Despite the age of the article, there is still plenty of basic insight in there to be an important read.
• This is an article I refer to from time to time, especially when I have a bit of a break from the reference desk. Reminding myself of the best ways to frame reference questions will never hurt.
• I first encountered this tool during my first week as an intern at MCPL.

"A Dirty Little Secret: Self-Censorship"

• Whelan's article addresses the nature of quiet and often, unmeaning censorship from librarians, publishers, and groups. This quiet censorship often means certain books, due to content, simply do not get the same sort of attention as other titles. Despite a lack of complaints in the "self-censorship" department, purveyors of books need to be careful to give all different sorts of titles the same fair chance.
• The best articles are those that resonate and can be re-read again and again with new facts taken out. I plan to re-read this article again in the future.
• I first encountered this title in my Public Library Management course.

"Tots to Tweens: Age-Appropriate Technology Programming for Kids."

• Technology programming in public libraries is lagging, behind technology in general and even the education system. In public libraries, technology training is often devoted to adults and teens. What if that wasn't so? Hadlock looks into examples of technology training with kids at various age levels and how to get those age groups invested in this sort of programming.
• This article was written in 2008 and technology has increased so much since then; however, Hadlock's basic principles are sound. Even though early digital media literacy training is occurring, there is still a long way to go and this article can help.
• I first encountered this article during my internship at MCPL.

Books:

Charlotte Huck's Children's Literature

• Huck's book (now written by Barbara Kiefer--refer to my Nationally Known Professionals page) is one if not 'the' leading resource on children's materials. The book features genre information, different reading level information, a plethora of booklists, a ton of bibliographic resources to other educational materials, some good insights on reluctant readers and reading in general and so much more.
• I constantly refer back to this book, at the reference desk and in classes and sometimes just to satisfy a personal query.
• I first encountered this book through a Children's Materials course at IU SLIS.

Baby Rhyming Time

• Baby Rhyming Time is a great beginning book for public library baby programmers. Not only are there "lesson plan" sort of chapters for lapsits, etc, Ernst also offers props, music, and other ideas from room arrangement to advertising. Other ideas for educating parents are also added into the already chock-full book.
• I used this book a lot at the beginning of my internship, but it has been especially great because it sort of helped me to think about the broader aspects of programming and how a lot of different elements must really be mixed and matched and combined to come up with a great program.
• Christina Jones at MCPL first recommended this title to me.